"The employees of the Sydney, Australia office of the investigation company Private are celebrating their office's incorporation when a bloody young man staggers into the building and the agency's caseload suddenly fills up."--Provided by OCLC.
In this 'Very Short Introduction', Kenneth Morgan provides a wide-ranging and thematic introduction to modern Australia, examining the main features of its history, geography, and culture and drawing attention to the distinctive features of Australian life and its indigenous population and culture.
Follows the life of an aging Australian novelist best known for one of her works from the 1960s as she attends and presents lectures and poetry readings, each of which reveals something about her passions, obsessions, and conflicted personality.
Sarah Wode-Douglass, the editor of a London poetry magazine, accompanies the famous and infamous John Slater on a trip to Malaysia, hoping to find out how he destroyed her parents' marriage, but instead finds herself drawn into a dangerous mystery abroad.
Tim repeatedly tries to warn his oblivious teacher on the class nature walk through the jungle that they are being followed by a very hungry boa constrictor, until it is almost too late.
Claudia Valentine is hired to locate a missing fifteen-year-old girl who has disappeared in the Sydney underground. She is soon confronted with the fact that her father disappeared in the same manner thirty-years ago.
Relates the history of Australia, covering the Aboriginal Australians, European settlement, gold rush, nationhood, impact of the World Wars, and to the beginning of the twenty-first century.
